A blog about moving away from London to live the beach dream in Cornwall

But the other day, when I was cycling home from work I noticed a weirdly huge flock of seagulls pegging it out into Falmouth bay and I watched them as they went, because I am a negligent cyclist who does not look where she’s going when there are more interesting things going on. I saw a big group of swimmers moving quite close to the cliffs. I thought it was a bit weird because nobody really swims in mid-February, and those that do tend to stay near the shore. They also tend to be exceptionally hardy older ladies who go in wearing nothing but a normal swimming costume, and these swimmers seemed to be wearing wetsuits. They were doing a lot of splashing and moving incredibly fast.… Read More BIG NEWS: Nobody has asked me to work on Blue Planet III

Now that I have a whole dwelling to myself, I spend an inordinate amount of time reading articles about all of the ways I’m failing to maintain an aspirational millenial home. I don’t have a cactus. Nothing is rose gold. I literally couldn’t give a shit about hygge.

The only snag was when we got to that whole ‘standing up’ thing they seem to insist that all surfers be able to do. I just couldn’t do it. I could push my torso up. I could even get up onto one knee. But at the last, crucial ‘Blue Crush’ moment, I always ended up with a mouthful of Newquay seawater. All around me, my fellow students – who I’d (smugly) sailed past so many times as I caught wave after wave while they struggled – flew past me. Sure, none of them looked like they were quite ready to star in their own early-noughties sports movies either, but at least they were out of the water.… Read More That time I sat on a man’s head while surfing

They call over a nurse who tells them that, yes, they should be removing their underwear. After much outcry she scares up a few pairs of what look like cycling shorts made out of the same material as our surgical stockings. That way the doctor can cut them off if wearing underwear for an operation turns out to be wildly unhygienic. I think we all know which way it’s going to go.

“Do you want some?” She asks, waving a pair in my direction. I politely decline. I’ve already been without undies for a couple of hours and I’m feeling so liberated at this point that there’s a good chance I may never go back.

I watched a lot of Netflix, do not get me wrong. Sometimes I even betrayed them and used my sister’s Amazon Prime account (shoutout to Mrs. Maisel). But I have a Netflix list that’s hundreds of hours long, and it turns out I have absolutely no concept of how much TV a human being can watch in two weeks when they also have to sleep, occasionally be in pain, or do literally anything else. Which is a really long-winded way of saying I made it through two and a half seasons of Gilmore Girls and a couple of episodes of Friends, although one of those episodes was Ross & Rachel’s breakup so that counts for at least five. I really thought I’d manage more, though. I guess, like Icarus, I dreamed too big.… Read More What I did on my holidays (AKA sick leave)

After I peed in some things (occasionally by medical request) and had some needles stuck in me (occasionally by medical request) I had to go for many and varied scans, which often involved drinking gallons of water before somebody pressed hard on my stomach with no regard to their being directly in the splash zone if my pelvic floor turned out to be less-than-stellar.… Read More Gallbladder, I hardly knew ye

So with that in mind, I chucked my little bird book in my bag this time. I’ve had it since I was a little eight-year-old birdwatcher (I feel like, given the rest of this post, that shouldn’t be a particularly surprising revelation). One side of it is stained with blood from where I cut my knee while running up the garden path, because they teach you about scissors as a kid, but they never teach you the dangers of being a baby geek.… Read More I’ve hit Peak Countryfile and it’s lovely